New Delhi, July 10: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam's (MTNL) maiden attempt to offer phone-on-demand through a trial run of the Qualcomm system has failed to take off. Two months after the system was launched, only 150 persons have subscribed.

The scheme was introduced it on May 17 by advertising in local dailies. There were 500 mobile and 500 fixed lines on offer. It was advertised that the system will be given to the subscriber within few hours of asking. "The response so far is lukewarm," said a senior MTNL official. He said the corporation planned to introduce the system in more metros after assessing the response in Delhi.

The companies promoting the wireless-in-local-loop technology such as, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Lucent, Hughes, Nokia, expect that once MTNL adopts the system commercially, the demand for their products will shoot up. Qualcomm was the first to get the offer. MTNL will shortly take up field trials of Ericsson and Hughes systems promoting TDMA (time division multi access) system. Qualcomm attributed the failure to get more subscribers to poor marketing and the heavy deposit amount fixed by MTNL.

Though the call charges are similar to other fixed phones, the security deposit of Rs 25,000 has been fixed by the MTNL. Dismissing the suggestion that poor marketing had practically botched MTNL's most innovative venture, the MTNL official said, "We do not aggressively market any of our services. If we try to market it aggressively, there could be a backlash." He said the technology MTNL was offering was among the best. But on mobile, it works in a limited area of six kms.

Qualcomm instruments are based on CDMA (code division multi access) and WLL technology. DoT is planning to go for WLL in a big way to meet the growing demand for telephones in both urban and rural areas. Sources in MTNL admitted that the Rs 25,000 deposit was too high when the cellular phones were available for less than half the price. Though Qualcomm is hopeful of persuading MTNL to reduce the deposit fee by half, the latter denied the move. "We have to recover our money. It is a government department. We cannot be going and physically collecting the instrument.

It is price is more than Rs 25,000", the MTNL source said. On the performance of the instrument, he said in the coverage area it is good. "Once we expand the area covered through more cell sites the performance will improve". However, he admitted that those who subscribed to the instrument are not fully satisfied. "There were some complaints", he said.

The MTNL official claimed the mobile phone they were offering was the cheapest. "The calls you receive are not charged at all", he added. However he said the response was comparatively better in the case of fixed phones. MTNL will soon launch the product in other cities as well, he said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.